These Unstable Projections
by FlyingHampsterOfDoom
Summary: Somehow, she knows, she's going to be spending a lot of time trying to convince herself that she's really out.
1. Chapter 1

**This is just the first part, I've got the other parts in the works- so far, it's not looking like it's going to be an over-long story, which I'm glad about. I'm thinking it's going to be between 3 and 5 chapters, all roughly the same length as this one. **

**I'm going to try and make each chapter be something that feels complete, so that if you ever get bored of the story, you won't feel **_**compelled **_**to finish it, because each chapter feels like it's an ending. **

**So anyway, this one starts off with Ariadne and Cobb in Limbo, and it's (obviously) told from Ariadne's POV. Drop me a note if something doesn't make sense, so I can go through and fix it when I add chapter 2.**

She hadn't understood, before this moment, just how lost he had been. Hadn't appreciated the depth of his confusion- that he hadn't just _wanted_ Mal to be real, but had really believed her to be. And she knows she's intruding on a private moment between the two, but they have to hurry, because Fischer needs them, and she's not so sure how much longer Saito can hold on.

It's then, as she's watching them speak; watching Mal yell and whisper and seethe that this is real, that these are their children; it's in that moment that she feels her brain fold in on itself, because she realizes she's four layers deep, and Mal just up and created a life for herself down here, children and all; and she's not entirely certain anymore whether or not Mal isn't real.

But she had _died_, she had jumped from a window and _died. _

She's not so certain she can handle the implications of that thought, and grips her totem tightly, feeling the grittiness of it from the sand and the slickness on the curves from where the sea had soaked through her jeans and washed at the object.

Cobb glances at her, and she has to fight the urge to vomit, because she doesn't feel _real_ anymore.

Mal died, and came to the real world, and Dom Cobb stayed behind, populating a dead world with projections- bits of his subconscious. She knows it's ridiculous (knows it because everything around her is made of pieces of dream and memories and sadness and loss. Knows it because she has a whole lifetime of memories long before he came along), but she still can't shake the idea, and it's somehow made her less.

The world around them is falling apart in a beautiful display of decay and light, and it's no longer important if she's real or not- it's all about getting Cobb out of here; because if he stays here he'll die.

It occurs to her, moments later, as she's out on the deck with Fischer, that if she really _were_ a part of his subconscious, she'd probably be the part that comprised his self preservation.

She takes one precious moment, carves it out of time with pure stubbornness, to watch her totem swing about on the surface of the deck; and she lets out a puff of air in gratitude when it can't quite decide which part to fall on, so it settles on swinging lazily about.

At least now she knows that this one part isn't real, that she can safely leave this little niche.

It still doesn't tell her if _she_ is real, though, and she's afraid that there's no such thing as totems for that.

So when she jumps, she lets herself relish in the feel of the freezing air ripping painfully through her hair, and the tears that pool at her eyes from the wind burn. Because she doesn't know for certain anymore, and so all she really can do is feel.

Three layers up, she can feel the pressure of water around her, and for a brief moment she's terrified that she's somehow managed to swing around in full-circle and ended up back in the ocean. It's not until Arthur's blurry form is in front of her that she realizes she's made it this far, just one more to go, and then she'll be back on the plane- back to what she had thought of as reality.

Only she can't think of it like that anymore, because she's still twisting her mind around stupid Cobb and the god damned limbo that she was in; somehow, she knows, she's going to be spending a lot of time trying to convince herself that she's really out. That she's really _her_ and not _him, _and she knows, right now, that no amount of totem swinging is going to work, because she's been irreparably fissured.

"He'll be fine," she tells Arthur when he continues to stare out at the water; she wants to add more- to tell him that she knows he'll be fine, because right now, she's pretty certain that they're all just bits of his subconscious. And so if he wasn't fine, by conjecture, they wouldn't be fine, either.

But she doesn't say that, instead she takes her totem out again and sets it on the bit of rock showing between her splayed out legs; watches as it once again can't decide where to land.

Arthur raises an eyebrow at her, and she can't really blame him- they all know this is just a dream, after all. But she wants to make sure it's not somehow different here than it was in limbo, because she's got enough on her mind as it is.

She just shrugs at him, letting her totem continue to rock itself about, before she begins to poke at it, making it sway in an over exaggerated manner to the left, then to the right. She sighs, and puts it in her soggy pocket, settling herself as she waits to be woken up.


	2. Chapter 2

"What will you do now?" she feels his voice next to her, more than hears it. It is for the best, they are supposed to be strangers now, merely waiting next to each other for their luggage through sheer happenstance.

"I don't know; I think go somewhere nice," she replies, smiling at him as if they have just been introduced, and it feels like a punch to her stomach when she sees the worry in his eyes; because all she can see there is Cobb, and not Arthur at all.

She decides she's going to go somewhere with snow, first. Where she can learn how to ski. Where she can make complex comparisons between textures and tastes and smells- maybe it will be enough to convince her that this is _real_ snow, and not dream snow.

Maybe it'll be enough to make her stop seeing Cobb in everything.

"What about school?" he smiles slightly at her while he reaches for his luggage.

"I phoned them about a family emergency a couple of days ago- I've got about two weeks before anyone will start missing me," she says, and she wants to be happy that he's worried about her. Except she thinks he's really more worried about whether or not she'll snap and ruin things for Cobb; because Arthur is nothing if not a dedicated friend.

She'd had to tell him what had happened, when Cobb hadn't resurfaced after a good two minutes- tell him about Fischer being shot, about going down after him. How limbo had been, with all those crumbling memories, with Mal. Had to tell him about leaving Cobb behind, because he was going after Saito.

He'd glanced at the pocket holding her totem, then, and back up to her face.

The entire plane ride back, she could feel his eyes alternating between the back of her seat and Dom Cobb in the aisle over, and she tried not to feel self-conscious while she toppled her chess piece over and set it back up.

Over and over, until Cobb had opened his eyes. And then she'd settled on just wrapping her hand around it and squeezing until she knew there would be bruises.

Even now, waiting for her mostly empty luggage, she held her totem tightly within her pocket, and pretended for all the world that it wasn't blatantly obvious to the man still standing next to her.

"I'm thinking somewhere cold," she says, shrugging when he looks down at her; she glances around LAX and then back at the conveyor belt where she can see her luggage making its way over to her, "it's a bit hot here," is her only explanation.

He gives her one of his small crooked smiles, and then in a voice that's meant for more than just her, says, "it was nice sharing a plane with you; hope you do well with your studies," and with a nod, he's gone.

She doesn't have time to stare after him, because her ugly floral print suitcase (the one she had stolen from her mother when she'd moved out) has just come within reach. By the time she's grabbed it, she's the only one from their group still standing at the airport, and she figures now is as good a time as any to find a flight.


	3. Chapter 3

The grittiness of the snow surprises her at first, but then again, she wasn't really laying in it during the dream. She thinks that maybe it's a good thing that the real snow surprises her.

She lays there in the snow for a long time, her back slowly sinking in further with each minute, and she can feel herself start to shiver. The snow has begun to trickle over her splayed out fingers by the time she decides to stand up, and the burning sensation all throughout her body is one she finally recognizes, so she smiles to herself as she drags her suitcase behind her and into the lobby of the hotel she has chosen for the week.

It's late and she's the only one in the main lobby, but still all the lights are on in a beautiful display- like it's Christmas here all year long- and she has to squint a little, but in the half-darkness of her eyelids she can see Mal playing with her children, so she forces her eyes open and ignores the slight stinging sensation that follows.

The man at the front desk looks at her funny, and she briefly envies him his solid knowledge of what is and isn't. A woman should not be coming into your hotel at 7pm soaking wet when it is clearly not raining outside. Reality.

"Took a bit of a tumble in the snow," she smiles at him, gripping her totem in her purse for a second, before grabbing her wallet and saying, "I made a reservation earlier? Under the last name Bauman," pushing her credit card in his direction she waits patiently until he hands her a card key for room 312 and a receipt to sign.

She steals the pen, it looks nice enough, and it's got the name of the hotel on it.

In her room, she quickly changes into her night clothes (she's started to feel the cold of the snow now, and she doesn't think getting sick will really help to convince her of anything) and sits at a table on the deck, pen and paper in hand, wrapped up in the heavy comforter from the bed.

The sky is completely dark by now, and the stars are unsettling to her- they're so _close _and there's just so many- they're too bright for her. She's losing herself again, she can feel it; she's never seen so many stars before, because she's always been a city kid, and this was just a terrible idea coming all the way out here to try and get a grip on reality.

She tries to focus on the sharp tang of the cold air, because _that _is familiar, at least- she's lived through dozens of harsh winters where it gets so cold that with every breath in you can feel your lungs frost over. But with each quick breath in and out, she just feels herself spiral out of control more- because all the way out here she can hear nothing but the slight wind in the trees and smell the promise of more snow to come.

She looks down at the pen in her hands, and feels the tears at the corners of her eyes. This isn't going to be enough.

She gets up and goes inside; the silence is getting to her.


	4. Chapter 4

The week was slow, and she spent it learning how to ski. Which worked out fine during the day- the strain of trying to stay upright tended to put a damper on one's existential crises, it seemed. And at night she was too sore to really put much thought into anything other than sleep.

So it was that on her last day at her hotel, she found herself booking a last-minute flight back to Paris for the next morning. She had another week before any of her professors would expect her back, but there was nothing for her _here_, nothing she could hold on to that would remind her that she had lived- that this wasn't Cobb. Maybe there would be something in Paris.

She ignored the idea of going back home.

Her apartment was exactly as she had left it, right down to the towel draped over her couch and the coffee cup half-full on her counter. It was refreshing but not comforting to see the bits of herself laid out. She stood in the doorway, keys still in hand, and took it in- this was her. This was not someone else, this could never be anyone else; it was all too spectacular.

Leaving the ugly floral suitcase laying on the floor by her door, she walked into the center of her living room and let herself be enveloped by the familiar. This was exactly what she needed, not some stupid pen with the name of some hotel that isolated itself within blankets of snow and beautiful lights. She needed familiar, she needed _her_.

The robot painting by her television, she needed that. And the disturbingly vast array of spoons in her kitchen, too. The hand-made paper mobile by her window. These things were not Cobb, and she felt instantly better in this isolated space.

The curtains swayed in the window she had left open; a testament to her hurry.

A testament to a broken love, a half of a whole.

She took a deep breath in and closed the window. Maybe her classes would help.

They were dull, just as they had always been. Filled with sleeping students and eager ones and ones who were only there to please their parents. Filled with hopes and wonder and insecurity.

She didn't know where she fell anymore, which made things that much harder in the end, because she had really hoped that this would work. That school would still be there for her, that it would still be her _thing_ like it had before.

But each class droned on and meshed with the other and she couldn't tell anymore what subject she was sitting in on, or who she was addressing when she was called upon to speak. She didn't know who the people sitting next to her were or what she was supposed to be doing each night that she went home to her apartment with the curtains and the half-of-a-whole.

So she started pulling money out of her bank account, a couple hundred here, twenty there. She knew she was coming down to the wire with how long she'd be able to stay in one place. She knew once she left she wouldn't be able to use her credit cards anymore, wouldn't be able to draw from her bank accounts.

Because Arthur was a good friend, and she was Self Preservation.


	5. Chapter 5

She was sat quietly in her third class, with one more to go; she was sat quietly in between Peter and Stacy, who were trying to hold a silent conversation over the top of her head. Droning out her equally silent professor who was talking seven rows down from where she was sitting uncomfortably, wishing she had had the foresight to see this coming.

She really should have known better than to choose a spot next to unflappably nice Peter, who wouldn't refuse her a spot because he didn't have a backbone large enough to tell her it was reserved for Stacy- who he was trying to coax into a dinner date at the present moment.

Over the sounds of her professor telling the entire world what sounded like _lies_ as he continued on about things her mind told her were grounded in reality and her heart told her were too easily breakable.

And she wanted to lean back in her seat and explain to the class how a paradox could save your life, how you could build up and up and up and you could hang things from the clouds if you wanted- you could _build things out of clouds_ if you wanted. She wanted to tell them that she wasn't sure what she was anymore, but she was sure that this- sitting in a hushed classroom and listening to what felt like propaganda- was not what she _wanted_.

And she wanted to lean in to Peter and push against Stacy and tell them (in a room full of people that would stare and continue on until she was sure they would kill her and she would just wake up already) that he had to be careful about who he looked at like that, because it leads to stupid decisions and mix-matched wants.

Because it leads you down a dark tunnel and you're never really afraid of it because there's someone beside you and the entire time you see the light at the other end, so it doesn't really matter how deep you go- you'll never be alone. But then one day you will be, and you'll be stuck there, just like that, making your way toward that light.

You have you be careful not to get too lonely in there, when the one you look at with eyes like that leaves you, because it leads to things locked up that shouldn't be; and it makes you start questioning if that light at the end of the tunnel is where you're really supposed to be going, or if you were supposed to be looking for doors along the side the whole time and just never thought to. Because you weren't looking for them, were you, Peter? You were looking at Stacy with those eyes that look like Cobb in a thousand different ways.

She doesn't make it to her final class, and instead grabs her ugly floral suitcase and the first flight available.

It takes her to Italy, which takes her to Australia, where she stays for a week.


	6. Chapter 6

The tingle of adventure wouldn't leave it's residence on her spine, and she suspected it had to do more with the fact that she felt like she was running than the spontaneity of it all. Running from her classes (she wasn't going to waste the phone call to say she'd pulled out; and the small, but not so small, paranoid part of her thought it would give her more time before anyone would go poking around for her). Running to a flight that she hadn't even checked the destination of.

Running running running. She hadn't done so much since she had left home.

She spent the first two days of Australia (no specific place in her mind, just a massive country that felt like a massive place to get lost in; she felt saddened that she hadn't first chosen a country to get found in) sitting in her cheap hotel and eating at side vendors. Places she thought might give off the best flavor of a place, the most memorable experiences; places she thought would be the hardest to track down.

She spent the rest of the week in a class, teaching herself how to safely fall from an airplane. Being taught in a classroom that smelled strongly of old Biology lessons at a rundown community college; being a student who sat fastidiously next to the same large, open window every day and stared at the doorway, waiting for something that would not happen.

It would take a long time for her to get used to the constant feeling of being chased; and in her mind it makes sense- always running from _something_, she was merely waiting for it to catch up to her.

When the time finally came to go up, to fling herself from an airplane and wait to either die or wake up or for nothing at all to happen, she sat closest to the door. Because even so far up in the air, she was still terrified that somehow something would crawl out and try to drag her away.

She watched in silence as one by one each member of her class fell from the plane, the rest clapping as if it was some great achievement- _she lets herself relish in the feel of the freezing air ripping painfully through her hair, and the tears that pool at her eyes from the wind burn- _and she would tell them about decaying cities. Towering skyscrapers that fell apart with the tide, as if sandcastles; about a sky that ripped itself in two so that they could bring a man back to life. About falling through all that, and how this will never compare. This is no achievement.

But she can't because there's too much noise. It is better, anyway, since they would think her crazy and not let her jump.

Rightly so, she supposes, as she watches one of the girls from her class begin to cry and back away from the open doorway.

She briefly wonders if she'll remember what that kind of fear felt like ever again, and lets herself drop into the endless expanse of blue.

_This is too familiar_.


	7. Chapter 7

Here's the thing: nothing happened. She didn't die, she didn't live, and she didn't walk away pretending like the experience had changed her.

So she jumped onto another plane and visited another town, another country, another memory. She tried everywhere, first, but that was too much; so she tried nowhere, too. But that was too depressing to see, so she settled on just plain anything.

It had been a month, really more like two, and she still couldn't shake the feeling of everything feeling too planned out; too familiar, even. She sat at a cafe and felt like she'd been there before. Or at least knew the person who designed it. Once again, too familiar.

She was sitting at a cafe, had just ordered a light lunch for herself, when she thought she saw Arthur, out of the corner of her eye; or maybe it wasn't really, maybe he had been right in front of her and he was just so good at blending back in that she had gotten mixed up.

_You're getting too paranoid, now,_ she told herself, in a voice that didn't really sound like her, and she sighed. It was as much agreeance as it was annoyance, the sigh, and she ignored her inner voice as she subtly scanned the crowds about her. _It makes sense that you would fear him coming after you, though, doesn't it? _She left the cafe before her order arrived.

_You're afraid you've gone crazy, aren't you? _And she ignored the voice in her head that sounded like her sister.

Back at her hotel she divvied up the collection of clothing and items she'd acquired over the almost two months, and stuffed some into her floral suitcase, and some into the new green one she had purchased three weeks ago.

She booked two flights and had one suitcase to each plane- New York and South Carolina. She hoped New York would appreciate the floral suitcase more than she ever did.


	8. Chapter 8

It wasn't a pleasant feeling, South Carolina. And the closer the plane got to landing on the tarmac, the more the unpleasant feeling bubbled up in her stomach.

This was her third flight in this forsaken state, and somewhere along the line she had lost her luggage. She wasn't certain if it was a pre-meditated idea on her part, or if she was just too distracted by the _sickness_ she felt oozing out of the pores within the very ground.

The nausea of it all pulled on her as she shuffled past strangers, eager to be off the plane, as if somehow the open air would dilute the very flu that was her birth state. It didn't.

She gasped in air abruptly, like some dying creature, and could feel the stares of those around her. It was almost a lovely feeling, the stares- perhaps if she was uncouth enough someone (_Cobb!)_ would just notice her in here already and the ugly white cells around her would converge.

She knew they wouldn't though, she had been down that road already- the screaming, the breaking things, and there had been profanity, she remembered. It lead to stares, attention, as much of it as she could get. And then people _had_ converged, but she hadn't woken up outside, she'd woken up in a hospital, with an IV drip in her arm.

_The white cells are taking care of you_, her sister had told her mockingly, and she'd cringed. For a terrifying moment that stretched, she'd given up on trying to get out, because now she knew- _knew_- that she was one of them.

Except anymore she felt like a cancer cell that had tricked the body into caring for it. Some days she couldn't decide if this was comforting or not. If she was cancer, was she still just part of it all, then? And just turned and was attacking viscously? (Not so successfully though, she admitted to herself). Or did that make her an outside source, still entirely her.

Still killing Cobb, though. Either way she had to go.

And here lies South Carolina, somewhere to go to. Somewhere to pull her up from herself, to tell her in no uncertain terms that she was none of these things, or she was all of these things.

She hailed a cab and headed home, to her mother.


End file.
